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The third trip to the Palace of Westminster sees questions from Tan Dhesi and Neil Hudson about disposable vapes importation and the sale of illegal products

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Planet of the Vapes’ third trip to the Palace of Westminster sees a question from Tan Dhesi about the number of imported Chinese disposable vapes. Also, Neil Hudson wanted the Department of Health to explain what is happening to prevent the sale of illegal products.

The Defence Committee Chair, Tan Dhesi Chair asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate has been made of the number of imported disposable vapes manufactured in China in 2023 and 2024.

Exchequer Secretary James Murray told him: “HM Revenue & Customs is responsible for the collection and publication of data on imports and exports of goods to and from the UK. HMRC releases this information monthly, as a National Statistic called the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS), which is available via their dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com). From this website, it is possible to build your own data tables based upon bespoke search criteria.

“Classification codes (according to the Harmonised System) are available to assist you in accessing published trade statistics data in the UK Global Tariff. Goods moving to and from the UK are identified by commodity codes. These are publicly available from the UK Trade Tariff at https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff.

“Disposable vapes are most likely classified as commodity code 2404 12 00 90. HMRC does not collect the number of units imported for vapes.

“The data we do have on the import of these items, can be obtained from the build your own interactive tables on www.uktradeinfo.com. These tables include country of dispatch (CoD) which gives information on the country of export. If specifically wanting information on country of manufacture/ country of origin (CoO) this is available in the  bulk datasets archive. The data available includes value and weight (kg) of imports.”

The Shadow Parliamentary Under Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Neil Hudson, asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care what steps are being taken to tackle the importation and sale of illegal vapes.

Andrew Gwynne, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care, replied: “The Government is taking concerted effort to tackle the import and sale of illicit vapes. This includes investing up to £3 million over 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support National Trading Standards to deliver a range of enforcement interventions, including the removal of illicit products from the market and intervention at ports. 

“The Government will expand on this by investing a further £30 million in 2025/26 to support tobacco and vapes enforcement action, £10 million of which will go towards bolstering Trading Standards’ ability to tackle illicit tobacco and vapes.

“Alongside additional investment we are also taking legislative steps to tackle the illicit market. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill provides powers to introduce a new retail licensing scheme in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland for tobacco, vapes and nicotine products and to establish a new registration system for tobacco, vaping and nicotine products entering the United Kingdom market. 

“We are also introducing a ban on the sale and supply of single use vapes under environmental legislation.”

Dave Cross avatar

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV
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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.

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